Rwandans protest as spy chief faces criminal charges in London

Thousands of Rwandans protested outside the British embassy in Kigali on Thursday, demanding that the U.K. release Rwanda's intelligence chief.

British police detained Karenzi Karake, 54, director general of Rwanda's National Intelligence and Security Services, at Heathrow airport on Saturday on a European arrest warrant issued by Spain in 2008 as part of an investigation into alleged crimes during the Rwanda conflict.

Denouncing the move, President Paul Kagame said in speech after swearing in a minister and other officials: "Any decent Rwandan, any decent African and even any decent person from these countries cannot accept this. Absolutely not."

In 2008, a Spanish High Court judge, Fernando Andreu, accused 40 Rwandan military and political leaders, including Karake, of engaging in reprisal killings after the genocide. Karake is part of a circle of top military officers in the former Rwandan Patriotic Front rebel movement, which is now the country's ruling party.

The judge indicted the officials for genocide, crimes against humanity and terrorism that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, including Spaniards.

Rwanda has said that Western nations have been swayed by those behind the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people were killed, mostly minority Tutsis as well as moderates from the Hutu majority.

The African country has long accused the West of doing too little to halt the genocide or crush groups such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu militia implicated in the killings and blamed by the United Nations and rights groups for atrocities in Congo.

“Africa say No to Western neo-colonialism justice,” read one placard held up by protesters. “Stop confusing the world on genocide,” said another.

Some of those at the rally were school children. One 17-year-old said he had been told to attend.

"When I reached the school in the morning, the head teacher called us when we were in class and at assembly, he told us to come to protest," he told Reuters. "I didn't know Karake, but I came to know about him today."

Rwandan news websites showed images of protests in the north and eastern regions of the small African country.

Protests were also held on Wednesday outside the embassy, blocking the road to traffic.

The case may further strain ties between Rwanda and aid-donor Britain after Kigali suspended a local BBC radio service last year following a documentary by the British broadcaster that questioned official accounts of the genocide.

The British government has said Karake's arrest was a legal obligation based on a valid European arrest warrant. It has said it wants to maintain close ties with Rwanda.

On Thursday, a British court granted bail to Karake.

"I am prepared to grant you conditional bail," the judge said, setting the bail amount at £1 million ($1.6 million) and ordering Karake to report to the police daily.

District Judge Quentin Purdy set conditions on bail including a one million pound surety, restrictions on Karake's movements and the surrender of his passport.

Wire Services